⏩ How to fail faster
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Enjoy the 92nd Podup, with special thanks to Deel.
Today, we’ll dive into the best insights and ideas from 20VC.
Most growth teams have a high failure rate. Sri Batchu is no exception. During his time at Opendoor, Instacart, and Ramp, Sri saw 2/3 of his experiments fail. But, this is no bad thing. The key is to fail quickly and conclusively. Sri shares how you can accelerate experimentation at your company.
Reduce cycle times
You take on a bunch of cultural baggage as your team grows. One example is the more you plan, the slower you become. You can overcome this by reducing your cycle times.
Google has OKRs that are 1-year long. Startups should have planning periods that are much shorter. At Ramp, we run the growth team on a 2-week sprint cadence.
Sri Batchu
Minimize processes
You need to shy away from processes as much as possible. If you're going to use tools like pre-mortems, use them selectively. I typically use pre-mortems if something feels like a big departure from current strategy, is a large investment, or is high risk. I don't use them for regular experiments.
Sri Batchu
Set a new normal
The other thing we do to drill in the importance of speed is to talk about what day it is since the founding of Ramp. We do this in every All Hands and board meeting.
People start thinking of days as the smallest unit of time, not months or years. They think 'What have I shipped today?' It's an implicit mental model that changes behavior.
Sri Batchu
Why it matters
The only advantage startups have is speed. Shorter planning periods, minimal process overhead, and an emphasis on daily progress can accelerate learning and product velocity. This cultural shift towards speed and agility can help your team identify effective growth strategies with far less waste.
Next steps
Embrace failure. Highlight to your team that failure is an expected part of the growth process. What matters is being accountable and disseminating your learnings.
Reduce cycle times. Shorter planning cycles can speed up learning. However, 2-weeks can lead to an excessive amount of meetings. Instead, consider the 6-week cycle from Shape up.
Minimize processes. Remove red tape to allow for bigger, bolder bets. Avoid the temptation of only focusing on easier, incremental gains.
Celebrate action. Foster a culture where speed is valued and daily progress is celebrated. Encourage your team to adopt the One Big Thing framework to focus on impact.
Your thoughts?
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